


Honeymoon On The Orient Express

by sheliesshattered (glasscannon)



Series: For As Long As We Get [4]
Category: Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Banter, Cuddling & Snuggling, Domestic Fluff, Episode Remix, Episode Style, Episode: s08e08 Mummy on the Orient Express, F/M, Fluff, Honeymoon, Implied Sexual Content, Kissing, Married Couple, POV Alternating, Post-Coital Cuddling, newlyweds
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-25
Updated: 2020-04-25
Packaged: 2021-03-01 22:13:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,269
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23834416
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/glasscannon/pseuds/sheliesshattered
Summary: Clara tensed against him, her mind whirling faster.“You know, this telepathy thing goes both ways,” he told her. “I can tell when you’re about to institute a new rule.”“Not a rule, more of a footnote for the future: with this much skin contact, I know when you’re lying.”“I’m not lying, just—”“Downplaying the chances that something is about to go catastrophically wrong on our space train? Our honeymoon space train? Our honeymoon, on a train, in space? That now apparently also involves, what, some sort of monster on the loose?”“The fact that it’s our honeymoon is precisely why I’m downplaying the chances,” he said reasonably.Clara and the Doctor take their honeymoon on the Orient Express, and encounter trouble along the way.Mummy On The Orient ExpressAU. Sequel toThe Impossible SoldierandFirst Row On The Moon, but can be read as a stand-alone.
Relationships: Twelfth Doctor/Clara Oswin Oswald
Series: For As Long As We Get [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1642132
Comments: 41
Kudos: 108





	Honeymoon On The Orient Express

**Author's Note:**

> Dialogue throughout is heavily borrowed and remixed from _Mummy On The Orient Express_. Many thanks to chakoteya.net for their excellent episode transcripts.

“That’s really disconcerting,” Clara mumbled, interrupting the Doctor’s thoughts.

“Hmm? What is?”

“I can _feel_ you thinking.” She hadn’t moved at all, and though he couldn’t see her face clearly, given the angle and the dim light, he’d guess her eyes were still closed.

“I did warn you that might happen,” he said reasonably.

“Mmm,” she agreed sleepily. “Skin to skin contact, you said. Does the _quantity_ of skin contact make a difference? Because this,” she shifted against him, sliding one of her short little legs over both of his beneath the bedcovers, and wrapping her arm more snugly around his midsection, “is definitely a record.”

Well. Now _that_ was all he was thinking about. There had been something else on his mind, moments ago, something that felt rather pressing, but whatever it had been was gone, replaced by far more pleasant thoughts.

Clara huffed out a little laugh, breath warm against his chest. “Down boy. I haven’t recovered from the last time.”

“Are you complaining? Is that what this is, Complaint Hour?”

“Noooo,” she said, burrowing impossibly closer to him. “I’m just sleepy. How are _you_ not sleepy?”

He tried to rein in his thoughts, keep his arousal from seeping through his skin into hers. “I was,” he said.

“Hmm?” she asked, on the edge of drifting off again.

“I was sleepy. I slept, now I’m awake again. I don’t need as much sleep as you do, you know that.”

“Right,” she said on a sigh. It was different from her usual sighs, not exasperated or angry or at her wits’ end, but soft and comfortable and relaxed. He wanted to box it up and keep it. “I felt you wake up earlier. That’s not what woke me.”

“Then what woke you?”

“You’re _worried_ ,” she mumbled. “Or you were before I started talking, anyway. Why are you worried?”

Ah, right. The previous line of thought. It flooded back in, picking up where he’d left off.

“It’s probably nothing,” he assured her, and pressed a kiss to the top of her head.

He felt her come more awake, her eyelashes fluttering against him. “Doctor,” she said in a warning tone. “When was the last time 'probably nothing’ actually turned out to be nothing?”

She had a point. “I’m reasonably certain this time,” he said anyway.

Clara tensed against him, her mind whirling faster.

“You know, this telepathy thing goes both ways,” he told her. “I can tell when you’re about to institute a new rule.”

“Not a rule, more of a footnote for the future: with this much skin contact, I know when you’re lying.”

“I’m not _lying_ , just—”

“Downplaying the chances that something is about to go catastrophically wrong on our space train? Our _honeymoon_ space train? Our honeymoon, on a train, in space? That now apparently also involves, what, some sort of monster on the loose?”

“The fact that it’s our honeymoon is precisely _why_ I’m downplaying the chances,” he said reasonably.

“Doctor, I asked you for one thing, _one thing_ for this trip.”

“You said no running.”

“I said _no running_. I didn’t even bring _shoes_ I can run in!”

“To be fair, we are on a train, in space. There’s not much room for running anyway.”

“On a train, in space, with trouble looming? How is ‘not much room for running’ meant to be comforting?”

“It might still turn out to be nothing.”

Clara sighed again, but it was back to the exasperated sort. “How certain are you that it’s nothing?”

“Ninety-nine percent sure,” he replied, shrugging a little.

She levered herself up to look down at him through the dimness of their sleeping compartment. “Really?” she asked dryly. “Ninety-nine percent? That’s quite high. Is that the figure you’re sticking with?”

“Okay, okay,” he said, wincing. “Seventy-five.” The number was probably closer to fifty-fifty, but he tried to keep that fact from bubbling to the top of his mind, where Clara might hear it.

“Well, that’s jumped quite a bit. You’ve just lost twenty-four percent.”

“Clara—”

She groaned and sat up beside him in the narrow bed, running one hand through her short hair. The haircut was a trick of the TARDIS, he reminded himself, both enjoying the change and looking forward to having Clara back to her normal self after her next visit to the wardrobe room. He rolled onto his side facing her, traced the pads of his fingers down the ridge of her spine in the starlight.

“This is about the old woman who died earlier, and what she said she saw, isn’t it? That word in your head, that’s what you think this might be?”

“A mummy that can only be seen by someone about to die?” he said. “Either it’s nothing, or it’s exactly what I think it is.” 

“Fifty-fifty chance,” she sighed, sounding resigned. Apparently he hadn’t managed to bury that number deep enough. “I mean, can you not just get on a train? Did a wizard put a curse on you about mini-breaks?”

The Doctor hesitated, then asked, “Are you cross with me? Did I spoil this?”

Clara laughed ruefully and shook her head. “No, you haven’t spoiled anything, Doctor. It would hardly be _our_ honeymoon without the threat of a monster lurking somewhere. Honestly, if we want a moment of peace, we’d be better off holing up in the TARDIS and ignoring the rest of the universe for a while.”

“We can still do that,” he told her in a low tone, leaning closer to kiss her bare shoulder. “Maybe tomorrow, or the day after.”

She closed her eyes and hummed happily. “I like the sound of that. But for now, new plan,” she said, business-like, turning her head to meet his gaze. “You go look into this, and I’ll get a few more hours of sleep here. If it _is_ something, come and wake me so I can help, I don’t want to have to hear about how clever you were over breakfast.”

“But that’s my favourite part of breakfast!” he objected. “That and the scones.”

“Go!” she ordered, but he could feel the laughter she was smothering.

“Yes, boss,” he said, meeting her halfway to claim a quick kiss, before clamouring out of bed to get dressed.

* * *

It was no use. Clara tried for half an hour or more, tossing and turning in their little bed, but there was absolutely no way she was going to be able to fall back to sleep. Not with the Doctor out wandering around in search of a might-be monster. _The Foretold_ , a mummy that could only be seen in the last minute before death. Because _of course_ there was a cursed mummy on their honeymoon space train. Giving up, she sighed and flung the covers back, and grumbled quietly to herself as she quickly dressed. She had half a mind to nip into the TARDIS for something more practical to wear, but given the lack of options at hand, her beaded flapper dress would have to do for now.

She had brought very little with her from the TARDIS, and as she dressed she left her gloves and costume jewelry sitting on the small bureau beside their empty champagne flutes. Phoning the Doctor would probably be the easiest way to locate him, so her mobile was the only thing worth taking with her — and she had pockets to stash it in, even in a dress like this, because the TARDIS wardrobe was magical like that. 

She finished buckling her shoes and then turned to her mobile, flicking it over to the messaging app. _Can’t sleep, might as well come help you_ , she texted to the Doctor. _Where are you?_

A moment later, his phone dinged in the dimness of one corner of their room, and Clara rolled her eyes. She would have to propose a new rule later: keep your mobile on you. Well, the Doctor couldn’t have gone far, given the confined space of the train. If he came looking for her and found their sleeping compartment empty, his first instinct would be to phone her, so she pocketed her mobile and made her way out into the corridor.

As she stood a moment, trying to decide which end of the train to check first, a blonde woman brushed past her in the narrow hallway. Clara recognised her from earlier in the evening, the young woman whose grandmother had died shortly before she and the Doctor had come aboard. Given the facts about the Foretold that she had gleaned from the Doctor’s mind, it seemed likely that it was connected.

The woman was also holding one high heeled shoe aloft menacingly, and had a single-minded look on her face that Clara knew usually meant trouble, so she quickly turned to follow her.

“Hello? Are you okay?” she called after her, speeding her steps to try to catch up with the woman’s determined pace. “Hello? Excuse me? Miss Pitt, wasn’t it?” she said, following her into the baggage car. “Are you alright? Do you need some help?”

“My name’s Maisie,” she replied as she came to a halt in front of a closed door marked _Private_. “I’m not mad.”

“Oh, um, okay,” Clara said, taken aback. “I didn’t say you were. But you’ve had a bad day. I think anybody could do with a little bit of help after a day like today.”

Maisie didn’t seem to be listening to her. “Computer, open the door,” she said, addressing the anachronistic panel set into the wall.

“Call me Gus,” the computer replied cheerfully. “I’m afraid this door can only be opened by executive order.”

“Are you okay?” Clara asked again at Maisie’s resulting sound of distress. She jabbed at buttons on the panel at random, but the computer refused to cooperate.

“They won’t let me see her body,” she said to Clara over her shoulder. “They should let me see her body, shouldn’t they?”

She must mean her grandmother, Clara realised. “Yeah, I should think so,” she said, keeping her voice gentle and sympathetic. “It’s in there, is it? I know someone who’s really good with locks. He’s called the Doctor, do you want to come with me, see if we can find him?”

With a little cry bordering on panic, Maisie hit the computer panel with the heel of her shoe, causing sparks to fly and the door to slide open as the panel malfunctioned. She went inside immediately, without so much as a glance in Clara’s direction.

“Or you could do that, because that works, too,” Clara muttered to herself, and quickly followed her in.

* * *

The lounge car was as good a place as any to look for clues, the Doctor thought, given that Mrs Pitt’s life support machine hadn’t told him much. He paused in the doorway, surveying the room filled with the train’s night owls, still lingering over their drinks though it was well past midnight local time. What was it the captain had said earlier, about the number of doctors and professors on this trip? It was exactly the sort of coincidence that nagged at him, a loose end to be picked at until it unravelled. In fact, he was certain that the man sitting alone just there was— 

The Doctor crossed the room towards him in a few long strides. “What’s the most interesting thing about the Foretold?” he asked without preamble. The quicker he could solve this, the sooner he could get back to Clara.

The man blinked up at him. “I’m terribly sorry, I don’t believe we’ve met.”

Human pleasantries. Boring. “You know, the Foretold, mythical mummy. Legend has it that if you see it, you’re a dead man.”

“Yes, I know what it is. You see, I happen to be—”

“Emil Moorhouse, Professor of Alien Mythology. I’m the Doctor. Pleased to meet you.” He sat in the empty chair across from the Professor, anxious to get on with it. “So, the most interesting thing about the Foretold. Go.” 

“Oh, well, it would have to be the time limit given before it kills you. I can’t think of another myth where it’s so specific. How does it go? ‘The number of evil twice over. They that bear the Foretold’s stare have sixty-six seconds to live.’”

“No, no. Nice try. Very atmospheric,” the Doctor said. “But that’s not it. Try again.” He truly hoped this was leading somewhere. He _could_ be back in bed with Clara, rather than sitting through what was somehow managing to be the galaxy’s most boring lecture on a legendary killer mummy.

“A cynical man might say that you were trying to pump me for information,” Professor Moorhouse said, apparently picking up on his impatience. 

The Doctor sighed. If you wanted something done right... “The myth of the Foretold first appeared over five thousand years ago,” he started, hardly even listening to himself as he rambled on, listing out everything he knew about the Foretold. He patted his pockets as he spoke. Where had he left his phone? If Clara was trying to sleep, he probably shouldn’t message her, but maybe she had sent him something. This was the longest they’d been apart since the wedding, after all. He could feel the minutes piling up, like an itch under his skin.

“You certainly know a little mythology,” Moorhouse said when his impromptu dissertation came to a halt.

“I know a lot,” he replied, still rifling through his pockets. “Because, from time to time, it turns out to be true.” Ah! There it was— no, wait, that was the cigarette case containing jelly babies. When he’d filled it, he had imagined how amused Clara would be when he showed it to her. But he’d forgotten about it entirely in the hours since then, preoccupied with things like getting married, and Clara’s presence inside his mind, and how she looked in that dress.

Well, a jelly baby or two could only make this interminable process pass more quickly. He opened the case and held it out to the Professor.

“But that’s the great appeal, isn’t it?” he said, accepting the offered jelly baby. “Earth legends are such dry, dusty affairs, and always fiction. But up here, in the stars, anything’s possible. That’s why I chose this field, to be honest. Hoping one day I might meet a real monster.”

“Isn’t that everyone’s dream?” the Doctor said. “But you still haven’t answered my riddle. What’s the most interesting thing about the Foretold?”

“Well, you can’t run from it, that’s for sure. There are accounts of people trying, but it never works. No matter how far you run, it’s always right there behind you.”

“Nope, even colder,” he said, shaking his head.

“Alright, I give up. You tell me.”

“Mrs Pitt, the old woman who died.”

The Professor looked confused. “She died of old age, nothing supernatural.”

“No, that’s my answer.”

“Her death?” he demanded.

“No. The fact that _you_ were here to witness it.” There was some sort of commotion at the other end of the lounge car, and the Doctor stood, quickly moving on to the next step in unwinding the mystery. “Excuse me, Professor.”

* * *

Trying to hotwire the jammed door from the inside had been a bust, and with the late hour it seemed unlikely that anyone would drop by a locked compartment of the baggage car and find them stuck inside. Clara’s mobile still remained obnoxiously message-free, but she knew it was only a matter of time before the Doctor came looking for her, and told Maisie as much.

“And this Doctor, he’s your what, exactly?” she asked.

“He’s my, um. My husband, actually,” Clara said, marvelling at the word. “Not really used to saying that yet.”

“How long have you been married?”

“About twelve hours now, give or take,” she replied, leaving out the bit about marrying in a different point in space and time entirely.

“Oh, that’s quite recent! Congratulations!” Maisie gushed.

“Thank you,” she said, bemused, realising it was the first — and perhaps only — time she would be congratulated on her wedding. It wasn’t like she could tell her work colleagues that she’d up and married someone they knew only as the temporary caretaker, so soon after breaking up with Danny. And she hadn’t even begun to consider how she was going to tell her dad and her grandmother.

“...But he left you alone in the middle of the night?”

“I _might_ have kicked him out. He doesn’t sleep much, and was keeping me awake, as well.”

“Yet here you are.”

She shrugged. “I couldn’t get back to sleep, so I thought I’d go find him. And then I saw you and you looked like you needed help. It doesn’t matter,” she waved it away. “We’re stuck in this room, probably all night, and all we can talk about is some man?”

“‘Some man’?” Maisie echoed, raising her eyebrows.

“Not that kind of— well, _yes_ , but that’s not the point!” Clara laughed. “You don’t want to hear about my love life.”

“Suppose I do?” she asked lightly, shrugging. “Better way to pass the time than talking about my gran, at least.”

Clara sighed, giving in. “Oh, alright. It’s been too long since I’ve had a good girl-talk session, anyway. What do you want to know?”

“Have you been together long?” the other woman asked, angling herself towards Clara in the semi-dark.

“Together? No, but we were friends for quite awhile first. Close friends, travelled together, that sort of thing. I was...” she paused, looking for the right words, “I was harbouring what I thought were one-sided feelings, convinced myself it couldn’t happen, you know how it is. Even tried dating someone else. But I couldn’t make myself get over the Doctor, despite him giving me plenty of reasons to think he didn’t have feelings for me.”

“So what happened?” Maisie pressed. “How did you get from there to here?”

“Uh,” Clara hesitated, laughing a little. “He met the man I was dating. And he did _not_ approve. I think his actual words were ‘you’ve made a boyfriend error.’ We had a huge row about it, and in the middle of it the truth just sort of bubbled out of me, that I was only dating him because the Doctor had made it clear he wasn’t interested.”

“Except he _was_ interested.”

“He was,” she agreed, nodding and smiling at the memory. “ _He_ thought I couldn’t possibly feel the same way about him, given the— the age difference and our friendship, all of that,” she went on, neatly sidestepping the entire _two thousand year old alien who changes his face when he dies_ issue. “We’d already been through so much that once we admitted to our feelings and decided to be together, the rest didn’t take very long. Bit of a rocky start, maybe, but we got there.”

“And the other man? Your ex?”

“Danny,” Clara told her. “He took the breakup harder than I’d expected, but I think he knew how I felt, as soon as he met the Doctor. He’s a good guy, and by far the safer, more stable choice. But just, not who I wanted, in the end.”

Maisie sighed happily. “Life would be so much simpler if you liked the right people. People you’re supposed to like. But then, I guess there’d be no fairy tales.”

Clara smiled softly, thinking of the Doctor demanding, _When did you start believing in impossible heroes?_ “Yeah. Fairy tale, sounds about right.”

* * *

Two deaths now, Mrs Pitt and a chef from the train’s kitchen. They both matched what the Doctor knew of the Foretold, down to the sixty-six second interval and the flickering of local electrical fields. Professor Moorhouse had agreed with his assessment, sometime before falling asleep in a chair where they’d been working alongside Perkins in the engineer’s office. Typical. 

Clara was probably still asleep too, cosy in their bed. Without him.

Well, his hunch had turned out to be right, she would be glad to hear, so he hadn’t left her completely unnecessarily. At this rate he didn’t have any hope of figuring out what the Foretold actually _was_ and putting a halt to the deaths before breakfast time rolled around, but at least he would have something to tell Clara about when she woke. Which had to be soon, he reasoned. It’d been hours. And maybe she would be able to discern something from the pile of paperwork he’d been poring over to no avail.

Overhead, a chime sounded, then the lights brightened and the blinds over the window automatically raised. Morning, finally. He never had located his mobile, so he disconnected the communication unit from the wall beside him and sonicked it into phoning Clara.

“Wake up, sleepy-head,” he said when she picked up. “Time for breakfast. Knowing this train, it’ll be amazing.”

“Doctor,” she said, sounding annoyed.

“They can’t even get that right, huh? Bad food on trains is traditional!”

Clara groaned. “Please, just—”

“I promise to keep the boasting about how clever I am to a minimum,” he assured her. “I haven’t solved it yet, and there’s been a second murder. So whenever you’d like to find your way out of bed and join me—”

“I’m trapped!” her voice echoed over the phone, breaking through his babbling and shifting his mood like a bucket of cold water over the head.

“What? Where are you?” the Doctor demanded, already running from the room.

“A locked compartment in the baggage car, across from where we parked the TARDIS,” Clara replied, sounding far calmer than he currently felt.

“What the hell are you doing in there? I thought you were sleeping!”

“I couldn’t get back to sleep after you left, so I decided to come find you and help investigate. Then I ran into Miss Pitt along the way — the woman whose grandmother died. She’s stuck in here with me.”

The Doctor sighed loudly, still working his way through the narrow corridors of the train towards the baggage compartment, weaving past passengers making their way to breakfast. “If you couldn’t sleep, you could have—”

“Phoned you?” she finished for him, and he could hear the smile in her voice. “Yeah, your mobile’s not lost in one of your pockets again, you left it in our room.”

He cursed himself silently. How many hours had Clara been locked in a cupboard because of his carelessness? “We should probably have a rule about that.”

“ _Way_ ahead of you,” she chuckled. “It’s fine. I’m alright, honestly,” she said, her assurances only succeeding in making him suspect that she was not as alright as she claimed. “Just get down here and sonic the door open already, would you?”

“I’m nearly there. Why are there so many damn people on this train?” he growled, finally turning the corner into the baggage compartment. There was the TARDIS, and across from it, a closed door marked _Private_ , heavy and reinforced, with a single blacked-out window. The computer panel beside it had a high heeled shoe protruding from it. He pounded his fist against the door. “Clara!” he called through it, then angled his face back to the communicator still pressed to his ear. “Is that you?”

“Yes! I can hear you,” she said, sounding relieved. 

“Have you out in a jiff,” he replied, turning his attention to the shoe that was likely blocking the door’s normal functioning. He removed it, flinching back when the panel sparked in response. The door remained closed, and the panel was in no condition to be used. “Computer, can you open the door, please?” he tried instead.

“Call me Gus,” the train’s AI replied in an obnoxiously friendly tone. “I’m afraid this door can only be opened by executive order.”

“Oh, forget it,” the Doctor muttered. He pulled the sonic screwdriver from his pocket and pointed it at the lock, only to watch the sonic stutter and die in his hand. “Oh, now the stupid sonic screwdriver’s not working,” he told Clara, narrowly resisting the urge the chuck the useless thing across the room.

“What? What do you mean it’s not working? Why?” she asked, the first hint of panic starting to work its way into her voice.

“I don’t know. Some sort of a suppression field, I would guess. And it has to be a guess because, as I said, the stupid sonic screwdriver’s not working.” He pocketed the sonic, grimacing. “What are you even doing in there?”

“Miss Pitt thought they might have put her grandmother’s body in here, she wanted to see her. No such luck, unfortunately. Seems to be a sort of oversized safe or strong room. Valuables and luggage and, well— a rather large, ornate sarcophagus, actually. Do you think it could be...?”

The Doctor felt his blood run cold. “Is it in there?”

Clara was quiet just a moment too long for his current level of anxiety. “I think we might be about to find out,” she said in a small voice. “Turns out the sonic was working. Just not on the door we need.”

Overhead, the lights flickered, exactly as they had sixty-six seconds before the previous two deaths. “Clara, it’s coming!” he said frantically, turning back to the computer panel. To hell with the sonic and Gus and everything else, he was going to get her out of there if he had to pull the door from its hinges with his bare hands. The exposed wiring was probably a better bet. He could short out a computerised door panel in less than a minute, couldn’t he? All he had to do was be more clever than a high heeled shoe.

“Doctor?” Clara said through the phone, but he didn’t have the words to reply to her, all of his attention focused on getting the door open. “Doctor, it’s okay,” she sighed, relieved. “It’s full of... bubble wrap?”

“Bubble wrap?” he repeated, confused. He stopped his work on the panel and tried to peer through the door’s opaque window. “But the lights—” 

He heard footsteps behind him and spun around to find himself face to face with Captain Quell and a pair of guards, pointing guns at him. 

“Doctor, step away from the door!” Quell ordered.

“My wife is in there,” the Doctor said, unable to find another phrase to convey the importance and urgency of getting that door open.

“Then she’s in trouble, too,” Quell replied. “I spoke to Head Office. There is no mystery shopper. You’re not even on the passenger list!”

“Clara, I’m going to have to call you back,” he said quickly, even as one of the guards closed in on him, handcuffs at the ready.

* * *

The line went dead, and Clara sighed, lowering her mobile.

“What happened?” Maisie asked.

“Idiot got himself arrested, sounded like,” she replied, shaking her head.

“Oh, dear. It’s something to do with that sarcophagus, isn’t it? They only showed up after it opened.”

“Probably,” Clara conceded. “The Doctor said there’d been another death, just like your gran’s. And the way the lights flickered a moment ago, there may have been a third. The Doctor thinks— _we_ think, it’s likely all connected.”

Maisie stumbled back a step and sat down heavily on a steamer trunk. “I thought I’d made this happen,” she admitted, her voice shaking. “I’d been picturing her dying for years, like a daydream. I didn’t really mean it, at least I don’t think I did. But then she died, and I just—”

“Hey, listen,” she said, going to her and kneeling beside her. “You can’t blame yourself, you didn’t make this happen. There’s something loose on the train killing people, this isn’t your fault.” 

“Right before she died, my gran said she saw something. A man dressed like a mummy monster, she said. And now there’s this sarcophagus.”

“It’s called the Foretold,” Clara said, keeping her voice comforting. “There are legends about it, and that’s what they say it looks like. That’s why the Doctor and I are here, to find a way to stop it. And we will, I promise you.”

“I thought you were on your honeymoon?” Maisie said, looking up at her.

“Oh, we are,” Clara laughed. “The Doctor sort of stumbles into trouble, doesn’t matter where we go. It’s an ongoing problem, believe me. But, luckily, he’s also rather good at solving mysteries and saving the day.”

“When you travelled together before, was it always like this?”

“Pretty much always,” she confirmed with a smile. “Worse, even. Usually there’s more running. Few days ago, we almost blew up a moon. And then he proposed.”

Maisie looked at her like she’d lost her mind. “You rather crave adventure, don’t you?” she asked. “The man you left to be with the Doctor, you said he was the safer, more stable choice. You _chose_ this life. Why?”

Clara sighed thoughtfully and shifted around to sit beside Maisie on the steamer trunk. “Because I get to help people,” she told her honestly. “Because I see amazing things, and it’s never for a minute boring. Because it’s the life the Doctor leads, and always has done, long before he met me, and it’s worth it to be with him, no matter how strange it seems.”

She mulled that over for a moment. “You really are living a fairy tale, aren’t you?” she said softly. “Just not the sort I thought.”

Around them, the white noise hum of the train’s engines came to an abrupt halt. They both looked up, concerned. “That seems like a bad sign,” Maisie said. “What do you think is going on out there?”

“Two, maybe three deaths, and now the engines have stopped. Whatever it is, it’s escalating.”

“And we’re locked in here,” Maisie said, twisting her hands together.

“Right,” Clara said, climbing to her feet and looking around. “We’re stuck here until someone with executive authority tells the computer to let us out. The Doctor will do everything he can out there to figure this out, but maybe there’s something we can do in here to help.”

“Like what?”

“For starters, someone put that sarcophagus in here on purpose, and I’d like to know why.”

“Well, what use is an empty sarcophagus?” Maisie asked, coming to stand beside Clara. “You would expect the mummy to be inside it, wouldn’t you? But instead it looks like some sort of stasis chamber, with all those wires.”

Clara approached it carefully, trying to get a better look at it without actually touching it. “You’re right, it does look like a stasis chamber, doesn’t it? And then the bubble wrap, like there was something fragile inside. But it doesn’t _look_ like there’s been anything in there, it’s not flattened down at all and the wires all look brand new.”

“Maybe it hasn’t been used yet?” Maisie suggested.

“Oh, there’s a thought,” Clara said, pacing back towards her. “Maybe someone _wants_ to put something fragile in there, and put it in stasis for transport?”

“Someone wants to capture the mummy and put it in there, you mean?”

“Could be.”

“But why?”

“To stop it from killing people, maybe? Or to study it? Whoever it is put an awful lot of money and effort into that bit of tech, and then dressed it up just like you’d expect for a mummy straight out of legend. And if it is connected to the Foretold, maybe there’s something else in here connected to it as well.”

Maisie turned on the spot, looking around at the dimly lit room. “It all just looks like luggage to me, ordinary luggage.”

“Not all of it,” Clara said, approaching a pair of large file folders tucked far back on one of the shelves. “Look at this,” she said, hauling one forward and pointing to the Orient Express logo emblazoned on the outside of the folder. “Why keep official papers locked up in here, rather than in the captain’s office?”

“You think someone with the Orient Express is mixed up in all this?”

“Only one way to find out.”

* * *

Four people dead, Professor Moorhouse among them, and the Doctor was still no closer to the answers he needed. Worse, he knew his attention was hopelessly divided, a portion of his thoughts devoted to worrying about Clara and how to get her out of the locked store room. He had never liked being separated from her while out on adventure, but it was different now — now that they were married, now that he had let her into his mind.

He needed her here, not just because he missed her, not just so he could stop worrying about her, but because he was better at this when she was with him. Quicker to solve the puzzle, and kinder to the people depending on him to solve it. What would she say, if she was here now? What detail would she have called out that had slipped his notice?

He had to find a way to get her out of that blasted room.

As though Clara could read his thoughts even at a distance, the communicator he’d called her on earlier rang, and the Doctor answered immediately, knowing it would be her.

“Clara,” he said when the call connected, managing to keep the smile off his face but not out of his voice. People were dead, yes, and the rest were being forced by a power-mad AI to study the thing killing them, but he was still a newly married man ridiculously in love with his wife.

“Hello to you, too,” she said, sounding just as pleased to hear his voice. “I take it you aren’t under arrest anymore?”

“We’re up to four dead, now. I convinced Captain Quell that he’s better off letting me look into this than locking me up. Unfortunately, he doesn’t have the authorisation codes to the room you’re stuck in,” he added sourly.

“Don’t worry about it, Maisie and I are alright here. And we’re looking into the Foretold here, too, finding out everything we can.”

Of course she hadn’t been sitting on her hands, waiting for a rescue. Not his Clara. “What have you got?”

“First things first: the sarcophagus is actually a secure stasis unit.”

“Right. It’s where they want us to put the Foretold if we capture it.”

“I figured as much,” she replied. 

“Please terminate your call and return to work,” the train’s AI said from overhead.

“Was that the train’s computer?” Clara asked. “Gus?”

“Bit of a tyrant, wants us focused on solving the riddle of the Foretold,” he confirmed. “What else?”

“We found some paperwork,” she went on. “Passenger manifests from other ships. Maisie recognised a couple of the names. These are missing ships.”

“So we’re not the first,” the Doctor said, putting together the pieces.

“Please terminate your call and return to work,” Gus said again, more stridently.

“We’re not the first,” Clara agreed. “I’ve got progress reports from a few of them. The Gloriana spent three days getting picked off by the Foretold. All died. Performance marked as poor. And the Valiant Heart. Forty-two crew, four died. Performance: promising.”

“Please terminate your call and return to work!” the computer repeated.

“I think you should do as it says,” Quell said, directing the Doctor’s gaze out the nearest window — where the recently deceased kitchen staff could be seen, floating in the vacuum of space.

“Clara, I have to go,” he said, and quickly ended the call.

“I’m sorry. I know that must have been distressing for you,” Gus said. “But if you are disobedient again, I will decompress another area containing less valuable passengers.”

The Doctor turned to the nearest panel, movements sharp with urgency. “Computer, there are two women locked in the secure storage area of the baggage car. I need you to let them out.”

“I’m afraid I can’t do that,” it replied. “I really must insist you return to work.”

He ground his teeth. “One of them is Clara Oswald, my wife and my—” he grasped for the terminology that would make the blasted AI understand “—research partner. I need her here, _now_.”

“Clara Oswald does not possess any skills vital to the research at hand.”

“She is vital to _me_ ,” the Doctor snapped.

“Then I suggest you return to work, before I am forced to decompress any other compartments containing _less valuable_ passengers,” the computer said, menacing through its cheerfulness.

“Less valuable passengers?” he said, a thought occurring to him. “How does it choose?”

“Well, I’m assuming qualifications,” Perkins said. “I wouldn’t take it personally, Doctor.”

“No, no, no. Not the computer, the Foretold. How does it choose who to kill? We’ve assumed it’s random. What if it’s not? I want full histories on all the victims. Medical, social, personal.”

“Well done!” Gus enthused.

The Doctor shot a sour look in the general direction of the nearest overhead speaker. “Don’t mention it.”

* * *

Clara lowered her mobile as the call ended, looking at the blank screen.

“That didn’t sound good,” Maisie said.

“Sounded even worse on his end,” she confirmed. “The train’s computer _really_ doesn’t want us talking to each other.”

Maisie frowned in confusion. “Why would Gus care if you talk to your husband?” 

“That is an excellent question,” Clara said, looking up at her. “And it tells us something. Two things, actually. First, the AI running this train,” she tapped the Orient Express logo on the outside of the file folder nearest to her, “is in on this whole thing. And second, there’s something in these files that it doesn’t want the Doctor to know about.”

“So maybe we shouldn’t stick our noses where they aren’t wanted?”

“Ooh, no. The opposite, in fact. We have to keep digging, find out whatever it is that Gus doesn’t want us to know.”

“Are you sure that’s safe?”

“There’s a killer mummy on the loose, and the AI that controls the engines and the life support seems to be enabling it. ‘Safe’ is relative.”

“You’re mad,” Maisie said, shaking her head. “But I suspect you’re also right. Alright, where do we start?”

“The paperwork for the Valiant Heart,” Clara said, turning back to the pile she had sorted through earlier and handing a portion of it to Maisie. “Their performance was marked as promising. Let’s see what they found out.”

“What are we looking for, exactly?”

“Anything useful they learned, any sort of pattern that might help us stop the Foretold from killing people. Could be the smallest detail, so if you notice something, call it out.”

They worked in companionable silence for several minutes, reading through the printouts by what light they could find in the dim room.

“Look here,” Maisie said, pointing to a paragraph as she held the paper out for Clara to see. “It says all four victims died of heart failure. Just like my gran, according to the physician who examined her.”

Clara read rapidly, eyes catching on the phrase _drained of all energy at the cellular level_.

“Only, that doesn’t make any sense, and I told him so at the time,” Maisie continued. “My gran died in her chair — it’s a sort of portable life support, it had kept her alive for ages. She’d had heart attacks before, and the chair revived her. It should have done this time, too.”

“Your gran’s chair, how is it powered?” Clara asked.

“Batteries. They’re supposed to be good for three or four days on a single charge, but she was paranoid about it, always insisted we recharge the chair overnight, while she slept in the matching bed unit. I’m certain it was charged up when she died, but the engineer, Perkins, told me the batteries were almost completely drained. It doesn’t make any sense!”

“Unless that’s what the mummy _does_ ,” she said, finding the other woman’s gaze. “The victims on the Valiant Heart, they didn’t just have heart attacks, they were also drained of energy, see? Suppose the Foretold drained your gran’s chair, too?”

“But why?” Maisie asked, brow furrowing in confusion. “What would a mummy need energy for?”

“Maybe that’s how it moves about, or makes itself invisible to everyone but its victim?” Clara suggested. “Either way, it’s a clue. Let’s see what else we can find...”

* * *

Quell was gone, _another_ death. He was running out of time.

“Teleporter. That means tech,” the Doctor said, thinking out loud. “Then sixty-six seconds to do what? Sixty-six seconds. That seems very specific. Too specific for organic. So, what, more tech? A countdown clock? Something charging?”

“A man just died in front of us!” Perkins protested. “Can we not just have a moment?”

“No. No, no, no. We can’t do that. We can’t mourn. People with guns to their heads, they cannot mourn. We do not have time to mourn!” He remembered all too well what Clara had said: _The Gloriana spent three days getting picked off by the Foretold. All died._ At the rate the Foretold was killing and the number of people left on the Orient Express, they didn’t _have_ three days to figure this out. It was choosing its victims strategically, attacking the weakest and most vulnerable people first, but eventually they would all be fair game. For now, Clara was relatively safe — she was healthy, and he knew first hand that her mental state was good — but what would he do once she became a potential target of the Foretold? Would he abandon his commitment to the rest of them, break all his own rules to save her?

He didn’t want to find out.

“Everybody, what takes sixty-six seconds to charge up or to change state?” he went on, barely pausing for breath. “Anyone? Am I surrounded by idiots? If only I could see this thing!” If only there was some way to make the Foretold target _him_ instead of any of the others. Instead of _Clara_.

“Don’t even joke about that,” Perkins said.

“I’m not joking about it,” the Doctor snapped. “One minute with me and this thing, it would be over!” And a minute would be all he would get, if he could find a way to become the focus of the Foretold’s attention. A minute to solve the mystery, disarm the killer monster, save the day. Sixty-six seconds to get it right. Or else— what? Would the Foretold even be _capable_ of killing him? It had stopped the hearts of all the humans it had killed, but he had two hearts. Would it stop one and leave the other? Stop both? Force him to regenerate? From personal experience he knew that regeneration energy could be used as a weapon, could he take out the Foretold that way?

 _No dying for either of us_ , Clara had said. It was rule one. But if it came down to a choice between braving a new face or watching Clara die in front of him, the decision would be an easy one.

“You know, Doctor,” Perkins said, drawing him out of his racing thoughts, “I can’t tell if you’re a genius or just incredibly arrogant.”

“Well—” he paused mid-reply, a thought occurring to him — _energy! of course!_ — “on a good day, I’m both. Ancient tech,” he went on, mind already skipping ahead to the next layer of the mystery. “This thing has been around for centuries. How? Tech that keeps it alive. Tech that drains energy from the living. Scanner,” he said, motioning to Perkins. He quickly scanned Quell’s remains and glanced at the results. Just as he thought. “He’s been leached of almost all energy on a cellular level. The heart attack is just a side effect.”

“Oh, it’s not just a mummy, it’s a vampire,” Perkins said. “Metaphorically speaking.”

“But why take sixty-six seconds to drain its victims?” the Doctor wondered aloud. “Why not just pounce?”

“Phase. Moving energy out of phase. That takes about a minute, doesn’t it?”

Ah, that fit together neatly, with the sort of rightness that the Doctor knew on a gut level meant they were on the right track. “That’s why only the victims can see it. It takes them out of phase so it can drain their energy. You, sir, are a genius! This explains everything!” he enthused, before the rest of his thoughts caught up with him. “Apart from what it is and how it’s doing it. Sorry, I jumped the gun there with the ‘you’re a genius, that explains everything’ remark.”

One of the scientists who had been running simulations to predict who among the remaining passengers and crew the Foretold would target next approached Perkins, handing him a datapad. “Doctor, I think we know the next victim,” Perkins said, passing him the pad.

“Ah, of course,” he said when he recognised the name. “That makes perfect sense.”

* * *

At the ringing of her mobile, Clara glanced up from the pile of papers she was looking through, relieved to see the Doctor’s stick insect icon on the screen again. “Hello, Doctor,” she answered, wishing they had time for more than the most basic of pleasantries. They were meant to be on their honeymoon, but had hardly had a spare moment for each other since he had begun to suspect that the Foretold was behind Mrs Pitt’s death. “How are things there?”

“Making progress,” he replied, sounding subdued. “Quell is dead, but we know how the Foretold is choosing its victims, and who will be next.”

“But that’s good news then, right?” she asked, trying to understand his mood. “Maisie and I have been looking through the records on the Gloriana, trying to find some pattern to the order of the deaths. What have you got?”

“It’s targeting the weakest first,” he said. “Physical illness and injury, mental or emotional turmoil, that sort of thing.”

“That matches with what we’ve pieced together about the Gloriana,” she said, nodding even though he couldn’t see her. “So who’s next?”

He was silent a moment then said quietly, “Miss Pitt.”

Clara frowned, concern washing through her. “Are you sure?”

“No sense downplaying it this time. It’s her. Probably soon.”

She rose to her feet and went to the far end of their little enclosure, trying to put as much space between her and Maisie as possible; she didn’t want to upset the other woman unnecessarily. “Look, she’s had a bad day, that’s all.”

“Clara, it doesn’t care,” the Doctor replied grimly. “Her bad day, her bereavement, her little breakdown puts her squarely in its crosshairs. She’s next. Every simulation we’ve run confirms it.”

“Okay,” she breathed, forcing herself to think clearly in the face of this news. “But, but we’re in here and if we stay in here, that thing can’t—”

“This thing can teleport,” he said gently. “We need her here. Even the computer agrees.”

“Okay, so you can save her, right?”

He paused in a way Clara instantly knew meant _no_ , but then said softly, “We don’t walk away.”

She closed her eyes at the familiar phrase. _We don’t walk away._ Even when it meant making the hard decisions, even when it meant putting themselves or others in danger. The Doctor hadn’t given up yet, despite the odds they were facing, and neither would she. “Alright,” she sighed. “If you can get the door open, we’ll come to you. Where are you?”

“Lounge car, though it’s more of a laboratory now. Gus should have unlocked the door already.”

Clara turned to the control panel on the wall, but the door slid open before she could even touch it. “Yeah,” she told the Doctor, trying not to think about the creepiness of the train’s AI watching her movements that closely. “Door’s open. We’ll be there soon.” She hesitated then said, “I love you.”

“Every good day, every bad day,” the Doctor replied, and ended the call.

“What did he say?” Maisie asked, sounding worried, as she came to join Clara at the open door.

She blinked back tears before turning to the other woman. “He convinced Gus to let us out,” she said, keeping her voice level through will alone. “We’re wanted in the lounge car.”

“Should we bring all this with us?” Maisie asked, gesturing to the papers spread across the floor.

“I don’t think we’ll need it, we’ve learned what we’re going to learn,” she said, shaking her head. “Come on, I don’t trust the computer not to lock us in here again.” Or the Foretold not to strike before they could reach the Doctor, but she wasn’t sure if telling Maisie she was next on its hit list was the right course of action.

In the baggage car outside, the TARDIS stood tall and silent, her one true home, its blue doors beckoning her to safety. Could they evacuate everyone from the train using the TARDIS? Fly away from the Foretold, let the killer mummy be a mystery for someone else to solve? Or at least get Maisie out of danger? She passed the exit to the rest of the train, gaze fixed on the TARDIS, but found the way blocked by some sort of invisible forcefield. Gus, probably, given everything else that had happened. 

Maisie touched her shoulder, pulling her from her thoughts. “Clara, what is it? What aren’t you telling me?”

She turned to her, still trying to decide how much she ought to tell her. _We don’t walk away_. “The Doctor thinks he’s figured out how the mummy is choosing its victims. He thinks you’re next,” she said gently.

“Me?” she said, taken aback. “But why?”

“Grief for you gran, all the hurt you stored up. Emotional turmoil is one of the things the Foretold looks for, if the Doctor’s right. And he usually is.”

“And that’s why he wants us to come to the lounge, so he can stop it from happening?” Maisie said. “That’s what the two of you _do_ , that’s what you said — you help people, you save the day.”

Clara forced a smile. “That’s what we do,” she confirmed.

* * *

It took far too long for Clara to appear, though the Doctor knew in reality only a few minutes had passed since their phone call. He was anxious to see her after so many hours apart, anxious for this to be _over_ , more than ready to get Clara out of the line of danger and back to the little bubble of happiness yesterday had been. But first he had to solve this, save Miss Pitt if he could, and somehow avoid regenerating as well. Nothing like an impossible task to get the adrenaline pumping.

 _When did you start believing in impossible heroes?_ he had demanded of Clara, sour over her faith in Robin Hood. _Don’t you know?_ she’d asked in return, giving him a look that he hadn’t understood until weeks later, when he’d found himself staring at the image of his own past face on the TARDIS monitor and trying to wrap his mind around Clara loving the man he had spent so long denying existed. _You stop bad things happening every minute of every day. That sounds pretty heroic to me_ , she had said to him, back when he hadn’t yet realised that what she meant was _I love you_.

For her, for Clara, he would be the impossible hero. No matter the cost.

* * *

The Doctor looked up as soon as she and Maisie entered the lounge car, finding her gaze instantly, and Clara paused on the threshold. It was ridiculous, they were in the middle of a life or death situation, racing the clock against a killer mummy that could appear at any moment, but she couldn’t help the way her heart stuttered at seeing the Doctor, the way her breath caught in her chest. They had only been apart a few hours, but she drank in the sight of him. He really did look unreasonably good in a suit. His everyday one was bad enough, but he’d had to go and dig up an actual _tuxedo_ for this trip. And then waltz around in it casually saving the day, like a character out of literature come to life, and somehow Clara was meant to focus on the task at hand rather than on how utterly in love she was with this man.

 _Later_ , Clara told herself forcefully. They had a mystery to unravel, a monster to defeat, and a train full of people to save. They could hide away on the TARDIS when that was done, and then she could take her time removing that tuxedo from him piece by piece. Again.

He held her gaze as he crossed quickly towards them, and Clara found herself suddenly unsure of how to greet him, of what made sense given the circumstances and the recent changes in their relationship. But the Doctor solved it for her, clasping her hand in his briefly when he reached her. Clara felt their minds connect and a wave of emotion from the Doctor rush in — his love for her, relief at being reunited, the longing he had felt while they’d been separated, and behind it all, a steady joy for her presence in his mind. She responded silently with her own complicated array of emotions, and watched the corner of the Doctor’s mouth curl up before he released her hand and broke the connection.

“Hello again,” Maisie said to him, unaware of their private greeting. “You must be the Doctor. Clara has told me so much about you.”

“How lovely for you,” he said dismissively, already leading her towards one of the desks that had appeared when the lounge transformed into a laboratory. Clearly he had some plan in mind, though Clara could hardly guess at what.

“We passed the TARDIS on the way here,” she told him as she followed them. “I thought about getting inside, hiding, pulling the levers and hoping for the best. But we couldn’t even get in, there was a forcefield around it.”

“It’s probably Gus trying to block our escape route,” the Doctor replied, his attention elsewhere.

“But how does the train’s computer even know what the TARDIS is?” she demanded. “And if it knows what the TARDIS is, it knows who _you_ are.”

“Believe me, the thought has occurred to me,” he said with a quick glance in her direction. “One crisis at a time.”

Before she could reply, Maisie gasped, her eyes wide and terrified. “I see it!” she said, pointing towards the far end of the train car. “I can see the mummy!”

“Do we start the clock?” the train’s engineer — Perkins, Clara thought he might be called — asked the Doctor.

“Not yet,” he replied tersely, picking up a handheld scanner from the desk and stepping between Maisie and where her gaze was fixed on seemingly empty air. “Focus,” he told her as he brought the scanner up to her forehead. “Focus! All your grief, all your trauma, all your hurt — focus it here! Concentrate on how it feels. And now,” he turned the scanner around, pressing it to his own forehead, “it’s mine.”

Clara’s heart lurched, pounding against her ribs as she realised what the Doctor was doing.

“It’s gone, the mummy’s gone!” Maisie said, relieved and confused. 

“No, no it’s not. Not for me,” the Doctor said. “Because now it thinks I’m you. Start the clock,” he said to Perkins, dropping the scanner back on the desk.

Clara’s ears were ringing, and she missed what the Doctor said next, her mind racing. Sixty-six seconds, that was how long it took for the mummy to kill its victim. Sixty-six seconds until the Foretold killed the Doctor, her _husband_ , right in front of her. She couldn’t breathe.

Only— that couldn’t possibly be what he had planned, could it? He was a reckless, self-sacrificing idiot on a regular basis, but only as a last resort. His plans never _started_ there. _We don’t walk away_ didn’t mean putting himself in the line of fire the first chance he got, it meant being clever and resourceful, and using his enemies’ weaknesses against them. 

Did the Foretold even _have_ weaknesses? What else had the Doctor learned about it in the time they’d been apart?

It didn’t matter; she couldn’t ask him about it right now anyway. What had _she_ learned while they’d been apart? What had the file said about the victims on the Valiant Heart and the Gloriana? They’d been drained of all energy, resulting in a heart attack, every single one of them. Would that even _work_ on a Time Lord? Drain the Doctor to the point of death and he would simply regenerate, and Clara had seen the sort of energy output involved with that — she’d seen it take out an entire Dalek fleet, and still have plenty left over for regeneration. 

Was that what he was banking on, that his ‘superior biology’ would be enough to defeat the Foretold? But at what cost? A new face, a new facet of his personality, just when they’d found their footing with this regeneration?

 _The Doctor will outlive you, but this face might not_ , he had told her, that night they had finally started being honest with one another. _I don’t want to put you through that again, but in the end I won’t have any say in the matter._

He wouldn’t do this intentionally, she had to believe that. He wouldn’t risk regeneration, or worse, unless there was no other choice. Which meant whatever his plan was, he had every intention of outwitting the Foretold before it got the chance to kill him. 

At the far end of the train car, the Doctor was addressing the monster only he could see, babbling so fast that Clara could barely keep up. “A tattered piece of cloth attached to a length of wood that you will kill for,” he was saying. “That doesn’t sound like a scroll. That sounds like... a flag!”

“What is he _doing_?” Maisie demanded from beside her, sounding at the edge of hysterics.

“Saving you,” Clara replied, eyes still fixed on the Doctor.

“By sacrificing himself?? I can’t let him do that! Not on your honeymoon!”

Clara tore her gaze away and turned quickly towards her. “It’s alright, this is what he _does_. He does mad, impossible things, and he _saves people_. We just have to trust him.” In that moment, she really wasn’t sure which of them she was trying to convince, Maisie or herself.

“Ten seconds,” Perkins said, watching the clock tick down.

The Doctor backed away from the invisible threat, and as she and Maisie stepped aside to let him pass, his eyes darted to hers, wide and frantic, holding her gaze for only a fraction of an instant.

Clara’s heart seized. 

“And all that tech inside you, it just won’t let you die, will it?” he asked the Foretold.

She trusted the Doctor. 

“It won’t let the war end,” he said to the empty air as he continued to retreat.

She trusted him.

“It just won’t let you stop until the war is over,” he said, backing up against the wall.

She absolutely trusted him. Even with his own life.

“We surrender!” the Doctor declared.

“Zero,” Perkins said, and Clara’s breath left her in a single rush.

* * *

Miss Pitt gasped, pointing. “I can see it again!” 

“It’s alright,” Clara said, sounding dazed. “I think we all can.”

“Do I start the clock?” Perkins asked.

“No,” the Doctor said, watching as the mummy raised a shaky salute. “The clock has stopped. You are relieved, soldier.”

The Foretold crumbled at his feet, leaving nothing but a pile of dust and dirty bandages, and a personal teleporter unit, its light still glowing faintly.

Perkins sighed audibly. “He’s not the only one.”

“We were fighting _that_?” Clara asked, approaching as he pulled the teleporter from the remains of the Foretold.

“So was he,” the Doctor replied absently, his mind already skipping ahead to the next impending crisis.

“Doctor—” she said, her eyes wide with emotion. 

“Save it,” he said, cutting her off. If she started in on all that now, he would be lost. “We’re not out of the woods yet. Well, Gus,” he continued, addressing the train’s computer. “I think we solved your little puzzle. Ancient soldier being driven by malfunctioning tech.” He sat down at the nearest workbench and sonicked the teleporter, not waiting for Gus to pronounce their doom.

“Thank you so much for your efforts,” the computer replied in its infuriating faux-cheerful tone. “They are greatly appreciated. Unfortunately, survivors of this exercise are not required.”

“Ah, well, there’s a shocker,” the Doctor muttered, focused on his task and utterly unsurprised.

“Air will now be removed from the entire train,” Gus went on. “We hope you have enjoyed your journey on the Orient Express.”

The Doctor glanced up to find Clara at his shoulder, her expression edging on terrified.

“No time to explain,” he said to her, sharp with urgency. “Get as much skin to skin contact as you can manage. I need my hands free, so find a spot and hang on.”

He could feel her standing close behind him, but still nearly jumped when she wrapped both arms around his shoulders and began untying his bowtie. She was quick about it, perfunctory, and his reprimand that this was hardly the time or the place died on his tongue, even as she undid the buttons at his collar and slid her hands inside his shirt.

 _Focus_ , her voice said inside his head, so welcome after so long alone that under any other circumstance he could have wept with it. _I trust you. I’m with you. Focus._

She was right, of course. He was playing against time, against the train’s AI that wanted to kill them all and leave no witnesses, and each second would directly translate to lives saved. The teleporter in his hands was their only hope of survival, and with the modifications he’d already made, he knew he could save Clara, and himself along with her. But all the other people on the train, all the rest of Gus’s intended victims, their lives depended on how swift and clever he could be now.

He felt Clara’s alarm in response to his thoughts, though she tried ineffectually to shield it from him. _I can save you_ , he projected at her, not pausing his work on the teleporter. _But you might pass out first. One thing that might buy you a few extra seconds, my respiratory bypass system—_ He let go of words and sent her the concepts directly, trusting her to keep up, while he focused most of his attention on expanding the range of the teleporter. She understood, quick as ever, and she pressed her cheek to his neck and tucked her nose into the hollow beneath his ear, her hold around his shoulders tightening.

It surged through him then, unbidden, his adoration and love for her, and he let her feel it too, in all its unfiltered complexity. He remembered thinking, back before Trenzalore and Gallifrey and his regeneration, that Clara was perfect for him in every way. But even then he could not have imagined a moment like this, the synchronicity and balance between them, the reassurance of her presence in his mind, her unwavering trust in him fueling his own belief that he could accomplish the impossible.

 _Focus_ , she told him again, letting him feel her love for him in return, letting it overwhelm her growing panic, as the air in the train car grew thin and the other passengers dropped to the floor around them. _Save the day, my impossible man_...

He felt her arms go limp around him, felt her mind go still, and used his fear of losing her to propel him through the final steps of modifying the teleporter. 

It was rule one, after all: _no dying_.

* * *

Clara woke slowly to the feeling of sunlight on her skin and the sound of waves crashing against a shore near at hand. Blinking in the pale light, her gaze immediately found the Doctor. He was stood just a few feet away, scratching in the wet sand with a stick, lost in thought. Clara pushed herself up to a sitting position and glanced around the rocky shoreline laid out around her.

“Hello again,” he said. “Sleep well?”

She looked at him in groggy confusion, then out at their surroundings. “Weren’t we just on a train?” The Doctor was still wearing his tuxedo, though the top buttons of his shirt were undone and he’d lost his bowtie at some point.

“Oh, that was ages ago.” He waved it away, attention focused on whatever he was writing in the sand.

“And?” she asked, trying to get her bearings. She was wrapped in a soft plaid blanket, and she pulled it closer around her to ward off the brisk breeze blowing in off the ocean. There were more blankets beneath her, laid out to protect her from the rocks and sand.

“And what?” the Doctor said, glancing up at her blankly. “Oh, and we got off the train. The teleporter worked eventually, beamed everyone into the TARDIS. No casualties, just a bevy of sleeping beauties. I tried hacking the train’s computer from the TARDIS, to find out who set this all up. Gus really didn't like that, set off some fail-safe thing, blew up the train.”

Clara blinked at him in surprise. “Blew up the train?”

“Blew up the train,” he confirmed, pantomiming an explosion with his hands before returning to his writing. “But we got away. Then I dropped everyone off at the nearest civilised planet, which happened to be here,” he motioned vaguely, directing her gaze to the city on the shoreline in the distance. “You seemed happy asleep so I left you to it, I know you didn’t get much last night. But I thought you might like to see the sunrise, so I brought you out here.”

“Sunrise?” she asked, looking up at the pale sky and then back at him.

He shrugged, eyes still on the sand. “You slept right through it. I’ll find you another one.” 

“So you saved everyone,” she said, smiling a little. Her impossible man.

“No, I just saved you and let everyone else suffocate,” he said, then added a sarcastic little, “Ha ha ha.”

She rolled her eyes at his attempt at humour.

“Yeah, this is just my cover story,” he went on.

“You think you’re funny,” she said, “but I know you too well for that.”

He glanced up at her and then back at the sand. “I’m sorry this trip didn’t turn out as planned,” he said, voice becoming serious again. “I can’t imagine that was the perfect honeymoon you’d envisioned.”

“We solved the mystery, saved the day.” She shrugged. “Sounds pretty perfect to me. You even managed to keep your promise of _no running_.”

“You can say it, you know,” the Doctor said when she didn’t go on, gaze still downcast.

“What?”

“That you were worried about me, confronting the Foretold the way I did. That my actions made you worry. You don’t have to try to hide that. Not from me.”

Clara took a deep breath, pulled her blanket closer around her. _No more lies, no more hiding._ That’s what she’d told him, that night they’d agreed to change their future. “You’re right, you did worry me,” she admitted. “For a moment there, I thought I was going to have to watch you regenerate in front of my eyes,” she said softly. “Again.”

He hesitated, then murmured, “I’m sorry.”

She shrugged from within the confines of her plaid cocoon, downplaying the panic that had gripped her in that endless sixty-six seconds. It felt so distant now. “What was I supposed to do, tell you not to try to save Maisie? Convince you to walk away? I figured you had some plan to outsmart it, but even if you hadn’t— even if it had—” She cut herself off, started again. “It wouldn’t have been ideal, but we would have survived it. Though I doubt the Foretold would have been so lucky.”

“If it had been standing next to me and taken the brunt of the regeneration energy, there wouldn’t have been much left of it,” he allowed. “But then we would have been stuck there with no easy way off the train, and Gus still intent on killing everyone. And you know how useless I am when I’ve just regenerated. It would have been _far_ from ideal.”

“Good job you solved it, then,” she said firmly, unwilling to give any more thought to how things could have gone wrong. “As quick under pressure as always.”

“Still,” he said on a sigh, finally abandoning his stick and coming to sit beside her on the blankets. “I’m sorry I worried you.”

She smiled at him gently and scooted closer to him. “Comes with the territory, I think,” she said, gaze on the distant horizon where the sea met the sky. “It’s natural to worry about someone you love. The potential for hurt and loss, it’s all part of the package. But what’s the alternative? Not caring about anyone? I don’t think either of us are wired that way, Doctor.”

He hummed in agreement and pressed a kiss to her hair. Together they sat and listened to the sound of the waves against the shore for several minutes.

“What does that say?” she asked, breaking the silence and nodding at the interconnected circles and lines he’d drawn in the sand. She knew it was Gallifreyan, knew it said _something_ , but the TARDIS didn’t translate the Doctor’s native tongue.

He was quiet a moment. “That’s my name,” he finally said softly, eyes on the sand. “My real name.”

“Your real name?” Clara said, turning to look at him. “Seriously? Am I allowed to know what it is?”

The Doctor leaned towards her and kissed the shell of her ear, and she heard it then, the strange syllables from a language all but gone from the universe, its peaks and valleys reverberating in her mind like a wavelength of light across interstellar space.

She drew in a shaky breath as it settled within her. “I feel like I knew it already,” she murmured. “Like I heard it once, a long time ago.”

“You did, in a way.”

“When?” she asked, shooting him a confused look.

“There was a day,” he said slowly, “before we went to Trenzalore the first time. A day that was erased from your memory, but you remembered some of it when we got to my grave. We were separated in the depths of the TARDIS, and you found a book in the library, a book on the Time War. You read my name in there, and asked me about it later, before the timeline got reset and erased the whole day. Afterwards, I was glad you’d forgotten it, but there have been times since that I wished...” He trailed off. “Yes, you’re allowed to know it. You’re allowed to know it now,” he finished quietly.

It was still so new, it sent a little thrill through her to hear the Doctor acknowledge the feelings for her he’d kept secret all this time. To know that in all those months she had spent wishing that things might be different between them, he had felt the same. In strange ways, it felt too precious, too fragile to be laid bare in conversation, so she sidestepped his almost-confession and focused on the rest of what he’d said instead, the odd image he’d presented of that half-forgotten day.

“There’s a book in your library with your real name written in it?” she asked. 

He shot her a sidelong look. “ _Our_ library.”

“Our library,” Clara repeated, dazed, and shook her head, smiling at him. “You certainly do know how to woo an English teacher.”

The Doctor made a sour face. “Are we still in the wooing phase?” he groused. “We’re _married_.”

“Shush, shut up,” she laughed, letting her blanket fall away so she could wrap her arm around his and lean against his shoulder. She found his hand and laced their fingers together. “Thank you for this.”

Clara felt his confusion and knew she would see it on his face if she looked up at him. “For the killer mummy on a train?” he asked. “Or the sunrise that you missed?” 

She shook her head, laughing. “For all of it. Getting to see wonders, and save people. For getting to have this life with you. Thank you for making me feel special.”

“Thank you for exactly the same,” he murmured in response, and kissed the top of her head. “Shall I find you another sunrise?”

“Mmm, not just yet,” she said. “I think I’d like to spend some quiet time at home, first. Maybe sleep in a familiar bed a night or two at least.”

He went still beside her, his mind withdrawing from the edges of hers. “You want me to take you back to your flat?” he asked, voice devoid of any particular emotion.

Clara glanced up at him in surprise, then pushed against the boundary between their minds in what she hoped was the mental equivalent of a playful shove. “Daft old man,” she said fondly, clutching his hand tighter. “I meant the TARDIS.” 

“Oh,” he said, relaxing.

“My flat hasn’t really been _home_ for me for awhile now, I think. And you did promise we could spend a few days hiding away from the rest of the universe.”

He seemed to be shielding most of his thoughts from her, but she felt the shift in his mood anyway. “I did, didn’t I?” he said. She caught a flash of memory, her naked in the narrow bed of their sleeping compartment on the Orient Express, the Doctor leaning in to kiss her shoulder. _We can still do that. Maybe tomorrow, or the day after._

“So,” she said, drawing out the syllable and answering his memory with one or two of her own. “TARDIS?”

Quicker than she had time to react, the Doctor stood and scooped her up into his arms, blanket and all. Clara let out an undignified yelp, then wrapped her arms around his neck, laughing. “I am perfectly capable of walking there myself, Doctor!” she objected, though she really couldn’t claim she minded at all.

“The ground is rather uneven, and you’re still wearing those ridiculous shoes,” he said, carrying her towards where the TARDIS was parked further back on the rocky beach. “Besides, this is traditional, isn’t it? Over the threshold, or whatever.”

“And since when are you a traditionalist?” she demanded playfully, watching his face from her close vantage point.

“Well, you’re only doing this once, right? Proper proposal, proper— other things,” he said, gaze fixed on the TARDIS ahead.

Another bit of memory slipped through whatever barrier he was trying to maintain between their minds — _the dimness of their sleeping compartment, her hands on the buttons of his shirt, his hearts thundering—_

“You lost your bowtie,” Clara pointed out coyly, fingering the edge of his unbuttoned shirt collar.

“Yes, well, someone thought it was a good idea to untie it while I was in the middle of trying to save everyone.” He was doing his best impression of disapproving, but the quickening of his pace and the thoughts that slipped through his mental shield said otherwise.

She traced the lines of his exposed neck with one fingertip. “I like this look on you,” she told him honestly, tone deceptively casual. “And the jumper you wore to Cole Hill, the one with all the holes in it. Less buttoned up.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” he replied tightly. 

“You do that.” She could see his pulse fluttering beneath his jaw and leaned in to press a lingering kiss to it.

“ _Clara_ ,” the Doctor said, sounding strangled. She suppressed a grin.

They reached the TARDIS in what she suspected was far less time than it would have taken her to pick her way across the rocks. As they neared, she freed one hand to snap the doors open, and the Doctor barrelled through with barely a pause. He kicked the doors shut behind them and continued straight to the console, with no indication he had any intention of setting her down.

“And you’re sure you dropped everyone off at the city?” she asked, kissing his ear and having far too much fun winding him up. “No stowaways?”

“Very sure,” he said, awkwardly shifting his hold on her to jab at buttons on the console.

He made the mistake — amateur, really — of meeting her gaze for a moment, and Clara took the opportunity to draw him into a searing kiss. The shield on his thoughts was failing rapidly, much to her delight, and after a moment he gave up all pretense of trying to keep her out. His mind was a jumble of sensations and emotions, of memories and plans for the immediate future, but in amongst all of it one image stood out, different from the rest: the ignition lever on the console, and Clara’s hand wrapped around it.

“ _Vortex_ ,” he managed, when Clara pulled back for breath. “ _Now_.”

She chuckled against his lips. “You left the rest of the blankets outside,” she pointed out, before kissing him again, raking her fingers through the short curls at the base of his neck.

“The TARDIS can make new blankets,” he replied a minute later, as she shifted her attention to his jaw.

“Fair enough,” she agreed, and reached behind her blindly, fumbling against the console until her fingers closed around the lever. She pulled it home, and felt her stomach swoop as the TARDIS took them away into the Vortex.

* * *

“You know, if you’re bored with your own clothing, we have a whole wardrobe room full of things to choose from,” the Doctor said from his position propped up against the pillows. “You don’t have to go around stealing mine.”

“Nah,” Clara said, shaking her head and making the short ends of her bobbed hair brush against the crisp collar of his pilfered shirt. “Stealing yours is _way_ more fun.”

He was staunchly against agreeing with her out loud, but given that she was stood a few feet away wearing nothing but his shirt, he had the luxury of agreeing with her in the privacy of his own mind without being overheard. Her ego didn’t need any more goading.

“Besides, I’m not going far,” she went on. Her attention was focused on buttoning the bare minimum of buttons to keep the shirt closed, the cuffs flopping long over her hands complicating the action. “You said breakfast was right outside the door.”

“Should be. Summoning food is tricky, it’s always a guessing game of ‘how much does the TARDIS like me today?’”

“I did offer to make the trek to the kitchen,” she pointed out reasonably, apparently deciding that three buttons was plenty.

“But then you would have been gone longer, and that would have necessitated more clothing,” he said, absolutely not whinging.

“Says you,” Clara laughed. She padded barefoot over to the door of the expansive bedroom the TARDIS had conveniently placed as close to the console room as possible without shifting the entire central architecture, and poked her head outside. “Oh, wow,” she said, opening the door wider. “It’s an actual breakfast _cart_. Full of breakfast-y things.”

“You were rather specific on the ‘breakfast’ part,” he said as she wheeled the cart in and closed the door again.

“I haven’t eaten since dinner last night,” she said, her back to him as she inspected the food offerings. “Which was, what— roughly twelve hours, one killer mummy, and one exploded train ago? Not to mention several rounds of physical exertion,” she added, looking at him over her shoulder and wiggling her eyebrows. He wasn’t sure if she meant it to be suggestive or comedic, but the result was an endearing mix of both.

“Care and feeding of a human,” the Doctor said, running a hand through his hair and wondering how disheveled it was at this point. “Which I’m led to believe is rather important.”

Clara snorted. “Oh, please. Some of what’s on here is _clearly_ for you. There’s scones, and coffee, and that is the single largest sugar bowl I have ever seen in my life,” she said, turning to look at him and pointing at the silver bowl in question. The effect was somewhat ruined by the shirt cuff engulfing her entire hand.

“Wouldn’t want to run out,” he shrugged, pushing himself into more of a sitting position and pulling the bedsheet up his lap in some semblance of modesty. Besides his shirt, the only piece of his clothing that had made it as far as the bedroom were his trousers, which lay in a crumpled heap on the floor near the foot of the bed. The rest of his clothes had been left strewn like breadcrumbs leading back to the console room, along with all of Clara’s. He might never find where those cufflinks had rolled to.

She brought him a half-full cup of coffee before he even had a chance to ask — the surest sign yet that she truly loved him — and set the sugar bowl on the bed beside his hip. “Couldn’t you just make the bowl bigger on the inside?” she asked, returning to the cart.

“Bigger on the inside has its charms, but there’s something to be said for comedically oversized, too.” He spooned sugar into his coffee until he was satisfied, then looked up to find Clara watching him fondly. “What?” he demanded.

“Nothing,” she said, smiling and shaking her head. “Just— I love you, in all your alien weirdness.”

“How is having a sweet-tooth ‘alien weirdness’?”

“You wouldn’t think it would be, and yet somehow you manage it.”

“Just part of my charm, I suppose,” he said, smiling at her smugly.

“Something like that.” She selected a large cinnamon roll from the cart and came to perch on the edge of the bed near him, her own coffee cup balanced carefully in her other hand.

“So, where to, boss?” he asked her in between sips of his sugary coffee.

“I’m still of the opinion that we should take a few days to ourselves here at home. If we land anyplace, we run the risk of encountering trouble, since you seem to just attract it, no matter what we plan.”

“It’s the TARDIS, really,” he said. “She’s philosophically against any trip she deems _boring_. Doesn’t matter where I set the navigation to take us, she’ll find some interesting alternative that’s only _almost_ what I asked for and take us there instead.”

“I like how you manage to excuse both your poor navigation skills and your danger-magnet status in one breath by blaming it on the TARDIS,” Clara said. “Who, it seems worth pointing out, has just provided us with an incredible breakfast. Seriously, this is the best cinnamon roll I’ve ever had.”

“Oh, don’t take her side in this just because she bribed you with pastries,” the Doctor said sourly.

She grinned at him around a bite of food. “Well, your fault or hers,” she said when she’d finished chewing, “I still vote we stay in for a few days. What do you think?”

“Eh, you’re probably right,” he agreed. “Though we might be able to split the difference, materialise somewhere in real space without actually landing, look at some planets or something. Oh! I could take you to where we saw the Magellan black hole, before the black hole was there, when it was all planets as far as the eye could see. The TARDIS still has an observatory, tucked away somewhere. We could stay in _and_ look at planets.”

“Mmm, that sounds lovely,” Clara said, leaning in to give him a quick kiss on the cheek. “Especially if I don’t have to put on any real clothes.”

He scowled, more for effect than anything. “If you’re going to keep wearing my shirt, what am I meant to wear?”

She shrugged casually, licking the stickiness of the cinnamon roll off her fingers in a way that was far too distracting. “Find yourself a tshirt or something. I’m told the TARDIS has an _amazing_ wardrobe room.”

“A tshirt?” he demanded, affronted. “I can’t even remember the last time I wore a tshirt!”

“Pinstripe suit boy, if memory serves.”

“Yes, but as an undershirt, not as— _Honestly_ , Clara, I wear layers for a reason!”

“Is the reason because you _enjoy_ the process of removing a dozen pieces of clothing and undoing all those little buttons before we can have sex?”

He sputtered at her, unable to come up with a quick retort as she giggled at him.

“So wear layers, you coldblooded sugar-loving alien,” Clara said, clearly enjoying teasing him. “That holey jumper, or the hoodie you dug up for the Karabraxos heist. Or turn the heat up in the TARDIS and forego clothing altogether. Your choice,” she shrugged.

“Do you want to go see the planets or not?” he demanded.

“My answer depends _entirely_ on your response to my last suggestion,” she said archly.

“Why do I get the feeling that whatever clothing I choose, you’ll eventually appropriate it for yourself?” the Doctor asked, narrowing his eyes at her.

“Because I already told you that wearing your clothes is more fun?”

He sighed loudly. “Oh fine, have it your way.”

“That’s the spirit,” Clara laughed, then leaned in and kissed him, tasting of coffee and cinnamon — tasting of adventure and excitement and the love of his life. “Now shut up and give me some planets,” she added, grinning at him.

**Author's Note:**

> Drop me an emoji or a keyboard smash to let me know what you thought! I have more one-shots planned for this s8 AU, so subscribe to the series if you'd like to see more. ❤️


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